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In an investigation of the applications of Combinatorial Game Theory to chess, we construct novel mutual Zugzwang positions, explain an otherwise mysterious pawn endgame from "A Guide to Chess Endings" (Euwe and Hooper), show positions…
Berlekamp proposed a class of impartial combinatorial games based on the moves of chess pieces on rectangular boards. We generalize impartial chess games by playing them on Young diagrams and obtain results about winning and losing…
In this paper we will discuss scoring play games. We will give the basic definitions for scoring play games, and show that they form a well defined set, with clear and distinct outcome classes under these definitions. We will also show that…
We provide a winning strategy for sums of games of MARK-t, an impartial game played on the nonnegative integers where each move consists of subtraction by an integer between 1 and t-1 inclusive, or division by t, rounding down when…
We define the family of {\it locally path-bounded} digraphs, which is a class of infinite digraphs, and show that on this class it is relatively easy to compute an optimal strategy (winning or nonlosing); and realize a win, when possible,…
The concept of nimbers--a.k.a. Grundy-values or nim-values--is fundamental to combinatorial game theory. Nimbers provide a complete characterization of strategic interactions among impartial games in their disjunctive sums as well as the…
For impartial games $\Gamma$ and $\Gamma'$, the Sprague-Grundy function of the disjunctive sum $\Gamma + \Gamma'$ is equal to the Nim-sum of their Sprague-Grundy functions. In this paper, we introduce $p$-calm subtraction games, and show…
We examine the structure of the additive period of the Sprague-Grundy function of Nim-like games, among them Wythoff's Game, and deduce a bound for the length of the period and preperiod.
Scoring play games were first studied by Fraser Stewart for his PhD thesis. He showed that under the disjunctive sum, scoring play games are partially ordered, but do not have the same "nice" structure of normal play games. In this paper I…
In this paper, we consider two-player impartial games with a pass-move. A disjunctive compound of games is a position in which, on each turn, the current player chooses one of the components and makes a legal move in it. For disjunctive…
For a collection of papers in memory of Elwyn Berlekamp (1940-2019), John Conway (1937-2020), and Richard Guy (1916-2020). The Sprague-Grundy theory for finite games without cycles was extended to general finite games by Cedric Smith and by…
Given an integer partition of $n$, we consider the impartial combinatorial game LCTR in which moves consist of removing either the left column or top row of its Young diagram. We show that for both normal and mis\`ere play, the optimal…
The traditional mathematical model for an impartial combinatorial game is defined recursively as a set of the options of the game, where the options are games themselves. We propose a model called gamegraph, together with its generalization…
We introduce operational semantics into games. And based on the operational semantics, we establish a full algebra of games, including basic algebra of games, algebra of concurrent games, recursion and abstraction. The algebra can be used…
We encode arbitrary finite impartial combinatorial games in terms of lattice points in rational convex polyhedra. Encodings provided by these \emph{lattice games} can be made particularly efficient for octal games, which we generalize to…
We analyze the Sprague-Grundy functions for a class of almost disjoint selective compound games played on Nim heaps. Surprisingly, we find that these functions behave chaotically for smaller Sprague-Grundy values of each component game yet…
We define a two-player combinatorial game in which players take alternate turns; each turn consists on deleting a vertex of a graph, together with all the edges containing such vertex. If any vertex became isolated by a player's move then…
By resorting to the vector space structure of finite games, skew-symmetric games (SSGs) are proposed and investigated as a natural subspace of finite games. First of all, for two player games, it is shown that the skew-symmetric games form…
The game of i-Mark is an impartial combinatorial game introduced by Sopena (2016). The game is parametrized by two sets of positive integers $S$, $D$, where $\min D\ge 2$. From position $n\ge 0$ one can move to any position $n-s$, $s\in S$,…
A combinatorial game is a two-player game without hidden information or chance elements. The disjunctive sum $G + H$ of games $G$ and $H$ is the game in which $G$ and $H$ are played in parallel, and a player makes a move on exactly one of…